5 steps for a successful product launch

Author: Karin Ingram Posted date: 03/05/2011

If you’re planning a product launch, you need meticulous planning and attention to detail. You need a solid marketing strategy, a seamless promotional campaign, as well as a plan of what to do post-launch in order to maintain a steady stream of interest.

1. Know your audience.

The ideal way to launch a new product is by doing some research on your customers – what they do, their interests, how they live etc. If you have a product that solves people’s needs, a good idea is to generate some hype before the launch. To do this, address some problem or desire they might have and target them with the marketing avenue they are most likely going to respond to. The key to this step is being able to communicate why people want your product, by succinctly stating what your product is about.

2. Position your target.

Depending on what type of audience you have, you might find they are best targeted by sending an email blast, or a flyer straight to their door, or through social media. With so many different marketing avenues available, you should be able to come up with your own tailored marketing campaign which mixes different promotional tools. Getting your name out there through as many outlets as possible well before the launch date will greatly impact your ability to sell the products later on – however without researching your audience first, you might end up wasting time, money and energy on marketing that nobody sees.

3. Write a marketing plan for your product launch .

To implement a successful product launch, you will need a robust marketing plan. Your plan should utilise the groundwork covered by the first two steps – but now you’ll factor in other constraints like time and budget. What are the scenarios you may face leading up to, and after the launch? What about after the launch when the buzz dies? Have an outline of the different plans of action you need to follow with your product launch in order to cover it correctly. If you have a few different audiences for example, you need to plot out how you will target each market and in what time frame.

4. Stick to the plan.

Your product launch will be successful if you follow the plan you made at the start. For example, if you allocated a set budget toward print marketing over online, don’t go changing it midway through. You might find that you end up losing out on valuable results, or wasting a lot of time at the beginning on things you now can’t afford to finish off. How long do you want your product launch to last? There are some that will last upwards of 6 months and if you don’t have the money to pay for a marketing campaign that will last this long you could be in a bit of a predicament.

5. Educate your employees .

If you want to focus on launching a new product everyone at the company needs to be involved with the new product. They all need to learn about the new product and understand what it can do in order to provide your customers with all the information they need to buy the products. For professional advice on how to tailor your promotional printing and marketing material to your products or product launch, contact the experts at your nearest Kwik Kopy Centre.

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